Apple boosting mapping mashup skills with Poly9 acquisition

Apple is continuing its recent acquisition spree, this time buying Québec-based mapping mashup firm Poly9. According to Le Soleil, Apple quietly acquired the company in recent weeks, and most of its employees have already moved into offices at Apple's Cupertino headquarters. The acquisition brings additional depth to Apple's talent pool of mapping- and location-savvy programmers after last year's purchase of Placebase.

Both Apple and Poly9—which still maintains a small office in Québec—are being tight-lipped about details of the group's focus inside Apple (Le Soleil noted that Poly9 employees have signed nondisclosure agreements). However, Poly9 is probably best known for its "Poly9 Globe," a Flash-based clone of Google Earth. It was also behind the Santa Claus tracking site run by NORAD, and has been involved in the development of a number of Web-based mapping applications for Microsoft, Yahoo, and even Apple itself.

Speculation so far seems to suggest that Apple may still be planning its own service to rival Google Maps or Google Earth. However, Apple is most likely boosting its own mapping and location programming abilities rather than looking for a wholesale replacement for Google Maps. Many of Poly9's projects involve using mapping data from a variety of sources, including Google. Its FreeEarth API incorporates geo data from the Placebase-developed PushPin API, so the company is already familiar with the technology Apple acquired late last year.

Poly9 developers are seen as "virtuosos," with Baliz-Media.com editor Luc Vaillancourt describing them as "agile Web ninjas." Le Soleil also notes that Tim O'Reilly, who had invited Poly9 to show off its work at Where 2.0, has also praised its developers' talent. What Apple has planned for Poly9 remains a mystery for now.

I'm hoping it's to beef up iPhoto's Places (and its iPhone Places equivalent). With the iPhone picking up a better camera, and GPS EXIF data being stored by more and more cameras, imagine how cool it would be to see all your photos projected up onto Poly9's globe.

I'm thinking we'll see a new core service in MacOSX and iOS, similar to Core Audio, Core Image and the likes. If done right Core Map/Core Location will absolutely rock and benefit every app running on Apple's platforms. Let's dream big!

hoping for lat/long as well as height added, perhaps also time; also for iPhone and Mac a convenient diy (multidimensional) mapping program; there is probably a lot of info, ground radar as well as botanical, meteorological, info to be accessed right now, and more is surely coming. Not everyone would consider "the number of butterfly larvae in the field behind my house is really staggering this summer, the microclimate seems to be really changing becaus of a few new trees.." normal conversation, but who cares, right?

I agree that these acquisitions are likely intended to boost the support and functionality for those existing APIs. In addition, perhaps Apple hopes to move further into location services for its iAd platform.

It's really doubtful that a Google Maps replacement is what they're doing. The major proponent of Google Maps is the data, not the functionality, and I don't see Apple getting into that sort of thing.

If they see Google as their #1 iPhone/iPad competitor (and surely they must, right?), they may absolutely be working on a Google Maps replacement. Depending on your competitor for key features is a dangerous business.

As someone mentioned before, Google maps is very effective because of the data, not just the gps and map functionality. While it is possible they would take a crack at beating them, I realistically believe they have another program that might be similar but offer some other feature better than google maps. maybe something that involved user input coupled with their own software.

It's really doubtful that a Google Maps replacement is what they're doing. The major proponent of Google Maps is the data, not the functionality, and I don't see Apple getting into that sort of thing.

If they see Google as their #1 iPhone/iPad competitor (and surely they must, right?), they may absolutely be working on a Google Maps replacement. Depending on your competitor for key features is a dangerous business.

If they see Google as their #1 iPhone/iPad competitor (and surely they must, right?), they may absolutely be working on a Google Maps replacement. Depending on your competitor for key features is a dangerous business.

That ship has sailed already surely? Nokia and TomTom essentially own all mapping except for a couple of countries that Google has mapped.

I have often thought that one thing that Google almost totally lacks (and it displays an uncanny similarity to Microsoft here) is any kind of phantasy and user-oriented creativity. They gather data and more data and wrap a plain and buggy app or a very sober service around it and that's it. Boring. Google Earth has endless potential but the app is so bland and unfriendly (since how many years now?) that you only use it if you have to or are a nerd. It's like having to eat caviar out of a hole in the ground.

What Apple needs to do is take mapping beyond that. Google always comes up with some not too bad idea, implements it in a half-hearted nerdy way and then goes on elsewhere. There's more to mapping than what Google Maps and Google Earth does. Much more. Google has some interesting things squeezed into these but they're so well hidden and so badly integrated that hardly anyone beyond nerds cares. I'm pretty sure that Apple could do better here. Google has already mapped the real world. Now someone needs to map the virtual world.

regarding maps:terrain changes over time. Road standards also. Coastal areas often need radar imaging to capture detail. What passes for astonishing map availability now, is truly great, compared to lugging paper maps... Googles direction is clearly set by visionaries, android as well as ftth (1Gb project) looks beyond dated models for owning/using technological tools; hopefully Apple will try to go them one better, with an astonishing, extendable (multidimensional) mapping program! Augmented reality, se William Gibsons latest, is probably of paramount economical importance, for capturing all those hungry for games (or art?), in a ...two year perspective? Noticeable but limited start in mass markets in one year?-sorry for the not-technically-savvy posts!

Anyone with a better term than (multidimensional) mapping, for denoting representations of real terrain with addition of other linked data like soil temperature, average snow depth, how beatiful you find a particular walk.. etc?? perhaps the phenomenon of "simple" maps, with the addition of time as a fourth dimension is important enough to have its own term?

given at Stanford last year by some dude who has been working in this field for 20+ years.He discusses ten different ways of "augmenting" the way we currently represent the earth via computers, and in each section he gives about three demos of different projects at different universities around the US and the world. It's a pretty amazing talk, both because of how much stuff he has tied together, and because of the possibilities that are opening up. The bottom line is that, yes, Google/Bing Maps/Earth is a nice beginning --- now let's get on with adding the following thirty new interesting features.

I use Google Maps in the browser, and I want to use it on my phone. I don't want Apple Maps, because I can't use them outside of the phone. I don't care about the spat between Apple and Google. I want to choose what's best and what's consistent across the devices I use.